t Litton was ever caught at was the thing he
was most ashamed of. He had begun to accumulate knowledge at an age when
most boys are learning to fight and to explain at home how they got
their clothes torn. He wore out spectacles almost as fast as his
brothers wore out copper-toed boots; but he did not begin to acquire
wisdom until he was just making forty. Up to that time, if the serpent
is the standard, Professor Litton was about as wise as an angleworm.

He submerged himself in books for nearly forty years; and then--in the
words of Leonard Teed--then he "came up for air." This man Teed was the
complete opposite of Litton. For one thing he was the liveliest young
student in the university where Litton was the solemnest old professor.
Teed had scientific ambitions and hated Greek and Latin, which Litton
felt almost necessary to salvation. Teed regarded Litton and his Latin
as the sole obstacles to his success in college; and, though Litton was
too much of a gentle heart to hate anybody, if he could have hated
anybody it would have been Teed. A girl was concerned in one of their
earliest encounters, though Litton's share in it was as unromantic as
possible.

Teed, it seems, had violated one of the rules at Webster University. He
had chatted with Miss Fannie Newman--a pretty student in the Woman's
College--after nine o'clock; nay, more, he had sat on a campus bench
bidding her good night for half an hour, and, with that brilliant
mathematical mind of his, had selected the bench at the greatest
possible distance from the smallest cluster of lampposts.

On this account he was haled before the disciplinary committee of the
faculty. Litton happened to be on that committee. Teed made the best
fight he could. He showed himself a Greek--in argument at least--and,
like an old sophist, he tried to prove, first, that he was not on the
campus with the girl and never had spooned with her; second, that if he
had been there and had spooned with her it was too dark for them to be
seen; and third, that he was engaged to the girl, anyway, and had a
right to spoon with her.

The accusing witness was a janitor whom Teed had played various jokes on
and had neglected to appease with tips. Teed submitted him to a fierce
cross-examination; forced him to admit that he could not see the loving
couple and had identified them solely by their voices. Teed demanded
the exact words overheard; and, as often happens to the too-ardent
cross-examiner